The Vestry which governed the parish cooperated very closely with the court which governed in civil life. The court prepared an annual list of tithables by delegating justices to cover each precinct. Then the Vestry paid the clerk of the court a small fee to make an extra copy for its own use. (These lists of tithables, where they have been preserved, are extremely important to us as genealogists.)
The court and the church cooperated in other ways also. If a woman bore an illegitimate child, her punishment was inflicted by the court. The usual fine was 50 shillings or, if she couldn't pay this, then 25 lashes at the public whipping post. The Vestry elected two church wardens each year who had the duty of making a presentation to the court of any misdemeanors at the end of their term. Misdemeanors included "swearing, abusing (God's) word and commandments, adultery, whoredom, fornication, drunkenness, or absence from church". The first grand jury in Spotsylvania County had two cases of adultery, two for swearing, and three for absence from church."
The church was responsible for the ill and the indigent and made annual appropriations to those who had to have help. Often in emergency cases, Vestry members gave help from their own means and submitted a statement to the Vestry for reimbursement. This might include burials, doctors' fees, nursing, boarding bastard infants, and caring for the helpless and incompetent. In the early days of the Spotsylvania Vestry, these costs were low, less than 5 percent, which was typical of frontier communities. As settlement increased, the figure commanded a larger percentage.
All of the expense of the parish was paid by a levy upon the tithables in the parish. The Vestry met, usually in the fall of the year, and drew up a budget, a combination of expenses from the past year which had not been budgeted, plus anticipated expenses for the next year. Expenses were denominated in pounds of tobacco, the working currency of eighteenth century Virginia. From the levy of 1734, some expenses were 1000 pounds of tobacco to George Carter for being the reader at the Mattapony Church in the year past, 1000 pounds to Zachary Lewis for being Clerk of the Vestry, 200 pounds to Thomas Hill for burying a poor man, and 500 pounds for the support of Catherine Rice. The total charges in 1734 were 74,520 pounds of tobacco. There were 1035 tithables that year. By a simple division, the Vestry decided that each "poll" owed 72 pounds of tobacco.
A poll was a white male 16 years of age or more or a slave or indentured servant. The exempt category was the very young and the white women.
If a man had nine tithes, perhaps himself, two sons, and six servants, then he would owe 648 pounds of tobacco which was worth perhaps three or more pounds of currency. This would have bought quite a bit of land, even a new town lot in Fredericksburg.
The Germans felt that the tithe to the colonial church left them with little discretionary income to support their own church. So they were constantly seeking exemptions from the tithe. The numbers quoted above for the year of 1734 would not have applied to the Germanna Colonies for they were living outside Spotsylvania County that year. They are cited here as typical.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.